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Ceylon Smilax
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Ceylon Smilax
P Native Photo: Prashant Awale
Common name: Ceylon Smilax • Adi: Yorit • Hindi: कुमारिका Kumarika, Jangli Aushbah, Bhitura • Marathi: घोटवेल Ghotvel • Tamil: Ayadi, Malaittamarai, Tirunamappalai, Kal Tamarai • Malayalam: Kaltamara, Karivilanti • Nepali: चोपचिनी Chopachinee • Telugu: Kondadantena • Kannada: Kaadu Hambu, Kaadu Hambu Thaavare • Bengali: কুমাৰিকা Kumarika • Oriya: Mootrilata • Sanskrit: Vanamadhusnahi Source: Names of Plants in India
Botanical name: Smilax zeylanica    Family: Smilacaceae (Smilax family)
Synonyms: Smilax elliptica, Smilax indica

Ceylon Smilax is a large climbing shrub with stems smooth, more or less 4-angled; armed with a few small distant prickles to almost unarmed. Leaves are spirally arranged, hairless, broadly ovate or almost round, 7-20 x 4-12 cm, tapering or cuspidate, base rounded, narrowly sheathing, 3-5 costate; leaf-stalk 1.2-2.5 cm; tendrils long and slender. Flowers are borne in solitary umbels in leaf axils. Flowers are stalked, umbles many-flowered; flower-cluster-stalks 1.3-2 cm; bracteate below the flower-cluster-stalks, flower-stalks of both male and female flowers arising from an aggregation of bracts. Male flower flower-stalks 3 mm; flowers 5-6 mm; stamens 6 mm. Female flower shorter than the male, tepals reflexed; flower-stalks 6-7 mm; stigma 3, recurved. Berries are red when ripe. Ceylon Smilax is found in deciduous forests in Western and Eastern Ghats, NE India, Myanmar. Flowering: April-September.

Identification credit: Prashant Awale, Tabish Photographed in Maharashtra.

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